Saturday, September 29, 2012

Sonnets continued


Used to gaze at the mirror reflection
Eyes looking back were completely unknown
Felt she was losing, felt the rejection
The cold fright, the uncanny, the soul’s moan

The monster stared back, whispered; who are you
Unveil the stranger, look behind the lies
Wake up, or the nightmare is coming true
She's not asleep, see, her wide-open eyes

Screaming in fear of the dark gothic tale
She’s still caught in her mind’s gloomy twilight
Black curls framing her face, her skin is pale
Though, on the air a promise of clear sight

From beyond the sea; be not afraid, dear
Give your troubles to me, for I am here


Friday, September 14, 2012

Identity - Friends

A couple of days ago I wrote an entry about duality and truth, but mostly it was about identity. And that is a concept I need to elaborate on a little bit. Not in a literary context this time, but in a personal, yet global context.
We figure out who we are through the people we spend time with. We identify with the people who identify with us...it's actually a complex and difficult topic to discuss come to think of it. All I know is that my world has expanded this last year or so, and is has a lot to do with the discovering of identity.
Who am I?
At Uni I found people I'll have in my life for as long as I live, friends that will help shape me into a better person. People who share their deepest secrets with me, and who trust me to keep them, people I would trust with my most precious...
We identify with each other through the love of literature and probably through a bit of madness :-) This is an experience I get to have because of a choice I made a couple of years ago.
A choice that turned out to be one of the good choices made during a life.

Another good choice was when I went from being a normal listener to a hard core fan of this little band called Marillion... if you have been reading my blog for a while, you certainly have heard the name before...and just get used to the fact that you will hear it again.
I almost feel a bit like a teenager when I talk about Marillion.
My brother was trying to explain to someone just how I felt about them, and his words were these;
Silje feels about Marillion as the teenager girls feels about Justin Bieber.
His comment made me laugh, and in a sense he's right. Yet there is so much more to being a fan of Marillion than the adoration part.
The music is magical, yes :-)
The band are so wonderful, caring and talented, yes :-)
The concerts are out of this world, yes :-)
The band connect with their fans on a level that is heartbreaking and so unique that I don't think their like can be found.
According to their lead singer, Steve Hogarth, it's not "us" and "them", it's just US. And we have all become a part of a big worldwide family of music, respect, beauty and a bit of comfortable madness :-)

The friends I've made through Marillion are what makes this take on another level completely.
There is the one whose poetic skills equals to Shakespeare and Hogarth...A person I can share funny and heartbreaking thoughts with...
There are the ones who bicker amongst themselves, and you just get a sense that they really enjoy the company the other represent. I'm honored that they make me feel welcome into their world where everything turns into jokes and sharp sarcasm... it's their way of getting through the days. And to do it so elegantly, and making me laugh so hard, yeah, I want to have friends like that in my life. Pictures of "dogs in fog" LOL
There is the one who always has a kind word, "a good night, my friend", even when I make freudian slips... the laughter was polite... I hope ;-) Yet, I fear that it was flat out hysterical... it was that kind of a slip!
Then there is the married couple where one writes thrilling books which should be made into a movie, and the other is passionate in saving dogs, and animals in general, showing me that we needn't be close geographically to be close...
There's the one across the Atlantic... the one with the big heart...
I must mention the one who writes, performs, records, and produces music that Marillion would be proud to perform, I'm sure. A brilliant person, and hopefully a future musical partner.
There is the one who takes these fantastic pictures whenever at a concert, willingly sharing the results to the real nut-crackers of the group...for them to have a nice picture above their beds.
There is the one who enabled my adventures to start, by creating Marillion Lyrics Day... I got all these friends that day. And to tell this person that I'm incredibly thankful is not enough...hence this entry.
Last, and most importantly, there is the one I feel I have known my entire life. This person is so brilliant and so kind, so beautiful and so incredibly including that I have no words.

And just when you think you're alone in the world, feeling the solitude devour... one of them cracks a joke forcing life into balance again.

I met these people through Marillion. Can anyone really afford to not be a part of this kind of magic?
Marillion are releasing an album now, called "Sounds That Can't Be Made". Click on the link at the top, the album is stunning, and if you have any musical intelligence, you'll order a copy :-)

I am continuing to make new friends through the music that powers my heart, slowly finding my true identity, finding my soul piecing itself together to the full, un-shattered whole.

Can I answer the question I asked earlier?
Who am I?
Well, I am a part of the Marillion family, and that is a truth that makes me so proud.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Truth and duality

Truth and duality are two concepts we constantly discuss in class.
And at this point, in my own search for identity, I feel that the more I learn, the less I know, and the more I desperately want to learn and know... about truth, identity and the deep fathoms of the mind.

The Stange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde deals with the hidden in the human psyche, the hidden in houses, the hidden in the fog, the hidden in power, the hidden in lies and the hidden in truth.
My course is called Madness and Writing, and believe me when I say that it lives up to its name. I constantly find myself at the brink of reality, at the edge of truth and by the cliffs of lies... obviously reading the syllabus, but I just recognized how strangely at home I feel borderline sanity and insanity, diving deep into discussions on what's visible and what's not...

The universal search for identity, that's what this really is about.
Who are we?
Who am I?
Finding identity and standing tall, in the western world, is mostly not a challenge... yeah, can be discussed, eh? But certainly not as challenging as if you were, say, a gay man in the Victorian London, and a gay man hidden inside a pillar of the society... You had no chance, you would have to conceal the truth from the world, from the surroundings, and from the self. The search for true identity becomes a different one, completely.
Keeping up appearances was the only thing that mattered, not loosing face, not loosing dignity or social standings. Hiding the feminine sides, in all aspects, became a self preservation, and staying within strict rules in society became the little death.
From a modern point of view, Mr. Hyde is Doctor Jekyll's gay, mad, crazy, murderous alter-ego.
When he is Doctor Jekyll, he's the kept together, well thought of, contributor to society and beautiful to look at. However, on the inside he's unhappy. He feels constricted and bound.
When he's Mr. Hyde, he's almost an ab-human character. He's hideous, small and vicious, but he feels great, deliberated almost.
Looking at his own reflection in the mirror becomes a conflicting and frustrating experience for the free Mr. Hyde. What he sees in the mirror is not mirroring what he feels on the inside. But which of them represents the truth?

We do like to think that we have come a long way today, that we accept any kind of identity in others, but the truth... lies... somewhere else, I think. We are just as constricted, restrained, and afraid of the unknown as we've always been.
And how can we search for any kind of truth when we always will see the truth from where we are standing? Truth for me, may be lies for you, presenting the question with a duality making it close to impossible to give a truthful answer.
Further, how can we understand why people make choices for their lives that everyone, including the one making the choices, knows are bad ones? Why can't we just make the good choice and be happy? Why can't we just make sensible and wise choices for our lives?
Could it have anything to do with the search for identity again?
Most of us (and now I'm talking about the people who have a certain moral compass, and just tries to get to one side of the sun to the other in one piece) come with a built in sense of right and wrong. We come with a feeling of who we are, who we might turn out to be, we come with a feeling of our own identity. Those of us who have children will know that the strength the little baby showed is something he or she brings along as they grow up. Some of us were stubborn, determined and happy as children, and can find a piece of that lingering on as grown-ups. Sometimes we might feel we became a person we don't always recognize. Sometimes we might react in a strange and unexpected manner in new (or even old) situations, and scare ourselves...normality cracking up, feeling a stranger in a familiar life. And sometimes we will find that everything turned out just as we thought when we were seven and fantasized about what grown-up life would be like.

We all have a sense of duality in us, a Doctor Jekyll and a Mr. Hyde, an angelic and a demonic side to our identity, and which ever side gets to dominate has to do with the experiences on the road towards identity and truth...